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Sioux Falls teachers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve a new, five-year working agreement that will raise their pay by 8.54 percent next school year.

The new contract turns the clock back on a severe state funding cut in 2011 that lowered their salaries an average of 2.05 percent. Next year, teachers will make what they would have been paid had they received 1 percent increases each of the past three years.

The school district can afford the pay hike because it has spent less than it planned to for years and has an oversized reserve fund. Their 2013-14 budget alone looks to spend $6.6 million of their $22 million in general fund reserves.

“The board early on was very committed to trying to take some of the fund balance and try to invest it back into the teachers,” board president Doug Morrison said during a news conference that started around 10 p.m. Wednesday. “We really had a vision, the board did, for what we wanted to do here.”

Deb Merxbauer, president of the Sioux Falls Education Association, said about one-third of the union membership voted on the plan, and 96 percent of those members voted in favor of it. Negotiations took three or four days.

“I think teachers are very pleased with the salary increase. It goes a long way,” she said. “We’ve really endured just terrible cuts.”

“That shows how good of a contract it really is,” said Travis Dahle, a Washington High School teacher and lead negotiator for the union. “People were really happy with it.”

The district is keeping the same salary structure it has used for the past six years, so there are no losers among new or veteran employees. Likewise, pay increases in future years will continue to be tied to whatever the Legislature provides through the per-student allocation of state aid.

One major change, however, is the teachers’ workweek, which grows from 37.5 to 40 hours. That means teachers will be at school an extra half-hour each school day, but more time will be dedicated to planning and collaboration. The number of planning hours will grow from 240 to 300 for elementary teachers and 250 to 300 for others.

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Teachers welcomed the change because it means more time to share ideas.

“Teachers learn from other teachers,” Dahle said. “It really helps at the middle school level.”

“We are increasing teacher planning time … and also collaboration time, and we know that those are two of the primary factors in increasing student achievement, so this is great for all of our students in Sioux Falls,” Merxbauer said.

Base pay for rookie teachers jumps from $30,680 this year to $33,299 next year, higher than it’s ever been but still short of several South Dakota school districts.

Separate from the teacher deal, the bargaining units for administrators and classified staff have agreed on 4.87 percent pay increases next year. Those groups were not hurt as badly by the state funding cuts, Morrison said, and the new agreements take them back to what they would have been making with incremental increases in recent years — just like the teacher deal.

The education assistants were the only employee group that hasn’t finalized its deal as of Wednesday night, he said.

Morrison said the finalized agreements are in line with the spending assumptions the board made when it tentatively approved a budget earlier this month.

How the negotiations affect Superintendent Pam Homan’s pay is yet to be resolved. The five-year contract she agreed to in 2010 ties her annual increases to whatever percentage the teachers get. So the new agreement entitles her to an 8.54 percent pay raise, up to $194,947 next year.

“Knowing Dr. Homan, I think she might be uncomfortable with that,” Morrison said.

Homan previously has taken less than her contract affords her. She hinted Wednesday that she would be accepting less than the 8.54 percent increase but wouldn’t elaborate, saying she wanted Wednesday’s news to focus on the teacher deal.